1) A fight breaks out, no-one steps in to break it up
2) A fight breaks out, someone steps in to break it up getting hurt in the process.

Greg, you are scenario two. You've stepped in where others have feared not to and have got hurt in the process. It's also obvious that others enjoy goading you. This says more about them than it does about you.

I wish you well,
Gassho,
Seishin

Thank you.

I have decided to stick with love.
Hate is too great a burden to bear.
- Martin Luther King, Jr. -

gregkavarnos wrote:It is just that I am trying to use the criticisms in order to see the weak points in my abilities. I want to see how I could posibly be a better moderator. I believe that taking intelligent criticism into account is a good way to develop ones abilities.

Okay, Greg, I will give you some constructive criticism. From those posts of yours I have read, it seems like that your replies often come across as a bit harsh and cynical--sort of like a small squirt of orange juice in the eyes of the reader. lol I'm not sure how much of that is due to your personality and how much of that is due to the fact that you aren't a native speaker of English (some cultures are more harsh and direct; others are very indirect and are more gentle with criticism). I know that you are very intelligent, but perhaps you don't always realize the exact feeling you will create in the reader when you're writing in English.

So my advice to you is to make your replies somewhat less harsh and cynical sounding. If fewer people are paranoid that your replies are really just indirect insults, then I think fewer people will insult you.

On the flip side, I would advise others to have some patience with Greg because he is not a native speaker of English and might not always realize exactly how his words come across. And we should reflect upon how well we would express the exact emotional nuances we would like to in modern Greek... probably, not very well! lol

It might be interesting to do a poll to see which countries most of the people are from who are mad at Greg. My guess would be that they are mostly Americans because they are often very sensitive to criticism. Although I'm American, I've lived abroad for a long time and have dealt with lots of people from different cultures, so this has made me more tolerant.

Luke wrote:From those posts of yours I have read, it seems like that your replies often come across as a bit harsh and cynical--sort of like a small squirt of orange juice in the eyes of the reader.

I second that. It's pretty much what I said in my (earlier) response to this thread.

I'm not trying to rub it in, Greg. Rather: To let you know that the tone of your messages has meaning/weight, not just the content. Kindness and humility go a long way ... and are pretty much at the core of Buddhism, right?

gregkavarnos wrote:(in my opening post) I didn't ask for people to kick me now that I'm down, I asked them to give me a hand so I can get up. It seems that some people take an admission of weakness, as an invitation to attack.

Greg,

Everyone knows that speaking openly & frankly about your emotions in relation to others in a public setting is no way to be a man. At least not a middle-class Englishman.

In friendship,
Jikan

I should clarify that this is in reference to an earlier conversation between Greg & I, and not intended to slander any middle-class Englishmen or working-class Greeks or ugly Yanquis like me or anyone else who may be participating in this thread. I apologize for the confusion.

Luke wrote:Okay, Greg, I will give you some constructive criticism. From those posts of yours I have read, it seems like that your replies often come across as a bit harsh and cynical--sort of like a small squirt of orange juice in the eyes of the reader. lol I'm not sure how much of that is due to your personality and how much of that is due to the fact that you aren't a native speaker of English (some cultures are more harsh and direct; others are very indirect and are more gentle with criticism). I know that you are very intelligent, but perhaps you don't always realize the exact feeling you will create in the reader when you're writing in English.

The harshness is a consequence of my personality. I was born, raised and educated in New Zealand and Australia. My parents were Greeks that immigrated to Australia. I moved to Greece about 17 years ago. Weird situation: in NZ and Australia I was always considered a "Greek", now in Greece I am considered a "foreigner".

So my advice to you is to make your replies somewhat less harsh and cynical sounding. If fewer people are paranoid that your replies are really just indirect insults, then I think fewer people will insult you.

This may be quite true. I have a problem with being brutally honest, calling a spade a spade. Some people don't appreciate that trait. Sometimes I can get quite nasty, especially when I am badgered. Having had to deal with a fair bit of racist bullying in my past, I have developed a propensity to "come out swinging". Not the best of habits. But, really, I used to be a lot worse. Buddhist practice has helped a great deal.

I also believe that this medium of communication, the internet, does not catch any of the nuances of face to face communication. A person may write something that seems agressive, but if one was to be able to see their facial or bodily expressions, it would be clear that it is out of a sense pain or suffering, rather than anger and hatred.

Sarcastic humor (which I learnt in Australia) is another mode of expression that doesn't work well on the internet. It is a mode that, in real life, I use quite often...

"My religion is not deceiving myself."Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE

"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."The Supreme Source - The Kunjed Gyalpo
The Fundamental Tantra of Dzogchen Semde

I used to think you over-moderated..then I noticed how it's basically the same set of ten or so irate, circular conversations that devolve into verbal slugging and nonsense which get moderated. You have alot to deal with. It seems like either you let people gunk up the place, or else they accuse you of censorship...kind of a rock and a hard place. I think some of the behavior appears censorial..I don't think it actually is, but it appears that way if one has no context, or hasn't observed the posting patterns that go on here.

I also felt you could be harsh personally at first, but I don't think that anymore, sometimes (especially in text) it's easy to mistake directness for harshness.

I think it's probably a nearly impossible job to do to everyone's satisfaction, and by definition being a good mod will earn you the ire of at least a few people.

Have a good time off man.

"it must be coming from the mouthy mastermind of raunchy rapper, Johnny Dangerous”

gregkavarnos wrote:(in my opening post) I didn't ask for people to kick me now that I'm down, I asked them to give me a hand so I can get up. It seems that some people take an admission of weakness, as an invitation to attack.

Greg,

Everyone knows that speaking openly & frankly about your emotions in relation to others in a public setting is no way to be a man. At least not a middle-class Englishman.

In friendship,
Jikan

I should clarify that this is in reference to an earlier conversation between Greg & I, and not intended to slander any middle-class Englishmen or working-class Greeks or ugly Yanquis like me or anyone else who may be participating in this thread. I apologize for the confusion.

Hmm, Freudian slip perhaps.

But it's true, proper English gentlemen don't speak publicly about their emotions. Rather, they speak openly and frankly about problems. They might even work cooperatively to solve problems.

Son of Buddha has asked several times for Gregkavarnos to list his problem areas but he refuses to cooperate. This strongly suggests that he has no real interest in helping to solve the problem. He has already taken the first step, which is to admit that there is a problem, and that's good, but stopping there and not "speaking openly and frankly" about specifics is not being frank or open, and it's not being cooperative.

Johnny Dangerous wrote:I think it's probably a nearly impossible job to do to everyone's satisfaction, and by definition being a good mod will earn you the ire of at least a few people.

Yes, I never heard of a mod who wasn't been critisized harshly. This is a bad fact!
I know one mod in another buddhist forum, who is always calm, who doesn't involve into the discussions, who tries to help the newbies, when nobody answers their questions... And? Is he beloved? Not at all!
Many people seem to mistake him as something like their father - and so he gets all the mud, the real fathers should have got by their missunderstood children.
In my opinion the aggressions against mods are an unsolvable psychological problem.

The sky is blue, the grass is green in spring, and the mods have to deal with anger.

I would not ask a human being to give up his personal characteristics before he can do the job.
If anyone wants the perfect mod, he has to refrain from internet-forums.

Greg, you were okay, and i think a time of retreat is always beneficial. You've really earned it.

I have decided to stick with love.
Hate is too great a burden to bear.
- Martin Luther King, Jr. -

gregkavarnos wrote:I have a problem with being brutally honest, calling a spade a spade. Some people don't appreciate that trait. Sometimes I can get quite nasty, especially when I am badgered. Having had to deal with a fair bit of racist bullying in my past, I have developed a propensity to "come out swinging". Not the best of habits. But, really, I used to be a lot worse.

One obvious problem you have is that you don't in fact call a "spade a spade." You get too reactive ("come out swinging") and stop listening, then you call a spade whatever suits you. I have an example of this from this very topic. On page 2 you wrote:

I am aware of your theory that Dharma practice does not gradually make somebody a "better" person as they steadily progress towards enlightenment.

I never wrote such a thing. You can search every post I've made and you won't find anything that says this. In fact I recall once writing that there are "many many" practices, some even secular, that are effective in self-betterment. But you heard only what you wanted to hear, or worse, only what you could hear, and turned a 'spade' into whatever you needed it to be.

shel wrote:One obvious problem you have is that you don't in fact call a "spade a spade." You get too reactive ("come out swinging") and stop listening, then you call a spade whatever suits you. I have an example of this from this very topic. On page 2 you wrote:

gregkavarnos wrote:I am aware of your theory that Dharma practice does not gradually make somebody a "better" person as they steadily progress towards enlightenment.

I never wrote such a thing. You can search every post I've made and you won't find anything that says this. In fact I recall once writing that there are "many many" practices, some even secular, that are effective in self-betterment. But you heard only what you wanted to hear, or worse, only what you could hear, and turned a 'spade' into whatever you needed it to be.

It is not the aim of this thread for you to continue a discsussion that hapened in a currently locked thread. If people want to read the discussion, and draw their own conclusions, they can find it here.

As for SoB, somehow I don't think he is an englishman, and anyway, he's a big boy and doesn't seem to need you to act as his lawyer. Anyway, I think I have made it obvious to him that I am not trying to bait him in order to pull him down. If you want to deal with an issue that exists between us then do so, don't hide behind others.

As for englishmen speak[ing] openly and frankly about problems, well, I think you may find a heap of irishmen (and scotsman) that may disagree intensely with you on that issue!

"My religion is not deceiving myself."Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE

"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."The Supreme Source - The Kunjed Gyalpo
The Fundamental Tantra of Dzogchen Semde

Johnny Dangerous wrote:I think it's probably a nearly impossible job to do to everyone's satisfaction, and by definition being a good mod will earn you the ire of at least a few people.

Yes, I never heard of a mod who wasn't been critisized harshly. This is a bad fact!
I know one mod in another buddhist forum, who is always calm, who doesn't involve into the discussions, who tries to help the newbies, when nobody answers their questions... And? Is he beloved? Not at all!
Many people seem to mistake him as something like their father - and so he gets all the mud, the real fathers should have got by their missunderstood children.
In my opinion the aggressions against mods are an unsolvable psychological problem.

But there is an unequal "aggression against mods." If the root problem was the "psychological problems" of the forum members shouldn't we see equal aggression towards all of the mods equally? The other mods here get very involved in topics, yet in my experience they can all keep cool heads and moderate discussions effectively.

shel wrote:One obvious problem you have is that you don't in fact call a "spade a spade." You get too reactive ("come out swinging") and stop listening, then you call a spade whatever suits you. I have an example of this from this very topic. On page 2 you wrote:

gregkavarnos wrote:I am aware of your theory that Dharma practice does not gradually make somebody a "better" person as they steadily progress towards enlightenment.

I never wrote such a thing. You can search every post I've made and you won't find anything that says this. In fact I recall once writing that there are "many many" practices, some even secular, that are effective in self-betterment. But you heard only what you wanted to hear, or worse, only what you could hear, and turned a 'spade' into whatever you needed it to be.

It is not the aim of this thread for you to continue a discsussion that hapened in a currently locked thread. If people want to read the discussion, and draw their own conclusions, they can find it here.

So are you admitting that I never wrote such a thing?

As for englishmen speak[ing] openly and frankly about problems, well, I think you may find a heap of irishmen (and scotsman) that may disagree intensely with you on that issue!

I find it ironic that Greg mentioned his background and how he reacts to badgering because of this, and then in his "taking leave" thread, people start badgering him about stuff. It doesn't seem very compassionate or understanding to me, which is also ironic, because people are asking Greg to be more compassionate.

Greg, enjoy your vacation, and email me if you are coming to Holland during it!

What people on forums often forget...there is a big difference between being open and honest, and then just stirring poop to make some sort of point. The mods and people running the forum want it to continue, obviously part of that is an environment where people aren't thrown off by tone of the place, i don't envy the job and I think it's a hard balance to strike.

The people that consistently jump down his throat publicly about moderating threads that get out of hand are funnily enough just seeming to prove that at least some of his moderation is justified, the forum degrades when half the threads are complaining about mods and repeats of the same conversations where people avoid making points by making character aspersions.

The question is what exactly a mod is supposed to do, if part of his job is keep endless circular conversation from devolving into mudslinging, then he is doing his job..whether everyone likes the results or not. You could argue that sometimes he overdoes his job, or gets too personally involved..there's truth to that in places I think. However, it is hard to argue that in cases where he takes action to lock threads that no action is needed..again "open and honest" is not the same as letting people repeat the same ugly, and pointless stuff over and over.

"it must be coming from the mouthy mastermind of raunchy rapper, Johnny Dangerous”